"Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage. Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives,” Ryabokov said, in a translation published by the Washington Post.

"We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes."

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also told Bloomberg that Russian embassy staff had met with members of Trump's campaign, adding this was "normal practice," but that Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's campaign had turned down similar requests to meet.

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